


And The World Went On Without You

by Draikinator



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Death, Gen, POV, Ruins, Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 03:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9105604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draikinator/pseuds/Draikinator
Summary: As it must.





	

Your body is so small.

It weighs precisely forty-four pounds and its hands quiver like wet leaves when it stands in front of your mother, a nine foot tall statue of rippling muscle beneath the cuddly veneer of soft fur and soft eyes. Her hands are like cages, holding back tongues of flame she called forth.

“Mother?” You ask, but your body’s lips don’t move, and she does not hear you. Your body steps forward of its own accord. It’s crying.

She lectures you about fear and evil men. You think about the shoes in the bedroom and how easily replaced children are. Humans have never been in short supply, somehow. Your body burns like leaves that are not wet on the stone floor and your body screams for you, mercifully.

You wake up and your body tries again. The second time it lasts a little longer, dodging attacks it clearly knew was coming and avoiding narrow death sentences, but in the end, death comes anyway, a blow to the side of the head. Your body crumples and you go with it.

On the fifteenth try your body is weeping silently through grit teeth but it steps forward anyway, because there is nowhere else for it to go. You wish it would give up and let you sleep again, but the world you were born back into is a nightmare designed just for you: the hell children go to when they disappoint their parents. A world of fire and loneliness and voiceless begging.

Your mother raises her hands again, her eyes filled with sorrow. The tragedy of your passing, predetermined. How terrible it must be to do this to you.

 _I want to live_ , something inside you whispers. It is the first time you have heard a voice within your mind that was not yours. _I want to go home._

This is not your body.

The body you inhabit dies once more and this time when it wakes up again it holds its face against its knees and sobs like the world has ended. You let it, for a time, testing your words on a tongue you must not have.

 _You don’t deserve to die,_ you say _, dying is a terrible thing._

The body sniffles, and wipes its nose on its sleeve. _I must. I always do._

 _Try again_ , you say. The body rises. It finds Her again.

She raises her hands the way she always does but this time you are not silent. _She is going to kill you again,_ you whisper _. You do not deserve to die. Not yet._

The body is frightened. Your mother’s fire cuts it down again while it flees. When you wake with it again it is crying.

 _You don’t deserve to die_ , you whisper.

 _I will, though,_ the body thinks _. I always do._

 _Get up,_ you whispe _r, You will not die this time._

The body gets up. It finds Her again.

You stretch your limbs against the body’s flesh and feel yourself, under its skin, like cancer. _Close your eyes, you whisper, I’ll protect you._

The skinsuit you are wearing closes its eyes and with it its heart, quiet, and afraid. You protect whatever thing other than you lives within this body that does not deserve to die.

You did. And you did.

You let go, and sink back into the darkness. _I am here,_ you whisper _, if you need me._

The body stands with dust against its boots in front of a door too large for its tiny hands. _Thank you._

You are silent. You come when you are called, when you are needed. The world did not need you in it, which is why you were removed. It continued on without you, unscathed. But you are here; again, despite all things. You will do the things that must be done because you can do them.

You were raised a monster, after all.


End file.
